Guilt. What a force for destruction! Every single person who reads this has sinned, the person who is writing it has too. The question for today’s reflection is this: Do we torture ourselves with guilt over our sin, or are we forgiven?
I don’t know why, but I often run into people who are Christians and who have a terrible time getting past feelings of guilt for their sins, even to the point of questioning their faith. Every time I hear this, I am surprised by it for some reason! Why would a Christian be filled with guilt over their forgiven sins? Didn’t Jesus give His life on the cross to set us free from all that? Yet within Christianity there are some who teach in a way that centers on guilt. I do not question the faith of these people, nor do I criticize their motives, for they are repeating what they have been taught. I guess all I can really say is that I grieve for them, because this is so hurtful and damaging to those they teach.
A Christian has already been forgiven for their sins, even the ones they haven’t quite committed yet. God knows our weaknesses, but He loves us anyway: This is simply a fact. Yes, we all mess up sometimes, but God has taken that into account:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9
If we believe the Word of God… no, let’s say it this way: If we believe God, then when we come to Him and confess our sins, He forgives them. Period. So why the guilt? We are forgiven, the slate is clean, we have been justified by our faith. End of subject. Wouldn’t we be more appropriate if we responded with thanksgiving and praise, rather than with guilt? After that, our response might be to serve Him with joy and gladness for all that He has done for us.
May we all ponder and reflect on these things, and pray for our brothers and sisters who find them hard to cope with, asking the Lord to open their eyes to the reality of all that He has done for His children.
Life Project Blog 
Got this picture (you are better than any hallucinations Don) of windshield wipers. Driving through life in my godmobile and it’s showers and road splash – with god’s wipers clearing the sin-drops. No guilt. No denial. Just swish swish gone. Tootling along letting god keep the windshield clean.
That’s pretty good Paul, I love it!
😉
This is great! I love it. Thanks, my friend. God blesses.
Thanks Noel!
Reblogged this on ShelleyMarie x.
Miscounting Our Goats
Wow, Don… I can’t believe you’ve brought this this morning. You have no idea why, I know, but I am mightily resisting a temptation to tell a story FAR too protracted to put in a “Comment”, so I guess I’ll need to post it on its own elsewhere, but your post brought forth some very clear statements in my heart and I’ll share them with you…
One, the second greatest tragedy I know in the Kingdom of God… second only to the damnation of the lost, is the Enemy’s success in robbing a true Christian of the freedom and joy inherent in the fact that Christ came not only to Pay the Price for their sins and “remove them from the court of God’s justice” by standing in the dock in their place… but that Christ TOOK AWAY THEIR SINS altogether, and Clothes Them in His Righteousness. That is, RIGHT HERE… RIGHT NOW… when the Father looks upon a True Believer, He cannot see their sins at all nor their stains. Their garments ARE (not just WILL BE) white as snow, even though their sins were as scarlet. Jesus came to bring life, to set captives free, to fill the Children of God with the joy and light of our inheritance. But somehow, all too often, we only see half the process… we get the “paid the price” part, but we miss the “removed, as far as east is from west” or “buried in the deepest abyss” parts.
Two, Jesus did TWO things on the Cross… (and many more, but these two are the criticals here)…
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9. (And we’ll address “confess” in a moment). Believers who yet live as though left in their bondage… manage to forget or ignore or they never saw the second verb in that sentence, “cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. They continue to walk as if stooped over under the weight of the chains that Jesus has removed from them and flung into the pit where those chains belong.
Three, the most common response I know, when this possibility… the fact that Believers really ARE clean and “set free” as captives of their guilt… starts to enter their hearts is, “CANNOT BE! It’s TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!” and the Enemy tries to get them to pull all that pain, guilt, shame, and sin back onto and around themselves. WHY? Because, believe it or not, the “Enemy’s Agenda” isn’t really to “get man to sin”. That is a MEANS to and end, not the end in itself. The “Enemy’s Agenda” is to separate, to alienate, God and His Children in their relationship of love, trust and intimacy. Now, nothing can fool God, or pull the wool over His eyes… He never changes in His steadfast love and embrace of His child, no matter what. But from OUR side of the relationship, the Enemy is just as satisfied if we think we must flee or hide from God out of guilt and shame, as if we flee because we “want to do bad things”. It’s all the same to the Enemy… we feel apart and abandoned by God, and we will be paralyzed and fail to function in the Kingdom as part of the Family Business of rescue and embracing other children. Anyhow, the Enemy is just as pleased to drive this wedge between us through false guilt and shame, as through carnality. The point is the separation, not the means.
Four, for the devoted Christian, the remedy to this sorry situation is the Word of God as contained in the Holy Bible. The explanation of this grace, this freely given unmerited favor and gift, given by this Unspeakably Incomprehensibly Loving God to free His captive children, is contained in many places and in many ways… but here is a painfully “quick” redaction of the critical elements: Hebrews 9, as a whole, deals with the process of satisfying the Law, by which Jesus fulfilled it. Verses 8-23 deal quite specifically with the matters we are discussing. The Day of Atonement sacrifice of Israel (Leviticus 16), cleansed the people, once a year, for violations of the Law. It involved TWO… count them, TWO…. goats. One goat was slain in atonement for the sins of the people, the blood collected in a bowl, and then poured over the head of the SECOND goat, who was then taken out of the camp and driven away, never to be seen again. “9 Then Aaron shall offer the goat on which the lot for the Lord fell, and make it a sin offering. 10 But the goat on which the lot for the scapegoat fell shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make atonement upon it, to send it into the wilderness as the scapegoat.” (Leviticus 9:9-10) But THIS sacrifice, THIS payment and cleansing, was imperfect and partial. It could not cleanse the conscience from sin, but it foreshadowed the sacrifice and cleansing that was yet to come in Christ at Calvary. We are now heirs and beneficiaries in the legacy of THAT Mighty Day of Atonement Sacrifice. Jesus, when He died, and when He Himself was Buried… both provided the death of the sacrifice (Goat One)… AND… carried those sins away from us and from all (Goat Two).
The mentor from whom I learned this truth, rather dramatically many decades ago (hence the long story I won’t tell here)… taught this as a preaching series over many weeks (as sheep have a really hard time digesting the truth that Jesus Alone forgives and cleanses by His Power and Grace. That our Salvation and Forgiveness and Righteousness are a matter of “Grace – Period – Wow!” rather than a matter of “Grace – But – We Must Add…” (I now call such folk “Grace Plus” Christians) Anyway, the “Big Idea” (for those who teach or take homiletics)… of these sermons was crystallized as:
“The sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross at Calvary, the shedding of His holy, sacred blood, was so powerful and so complete that it forgave and took away all sin for all time, past, present, and future, in the life of the Believer, such that there is no further room in the life of the Believer for any ongoing sense of sin, or guilt, or shame.”
God BRANDED this truth so deeply into the cells of my brain and the harmonies of my heart and soul forever after, that it’s no exaggeration to say my entire life and ministry have since been dedicated to sharing this, with both Believers and Unbelievers alike. HERE is the GOSPEL… the truly Good News of what happened when God became flesh and came to live among (within) us. To be freed, forever, from the ongoing burden of sin, guilt, and shame that holds us in the misery of our lives and apart from a Father God who loves us with a passion that cannot be comprehended let alone expressed… HERE… NOW… not “just” when we die! This is a life-changing opportunity! THIS is to be “saved” (perhaps better translated… “rescued”… as we know, but seldom preach).
OK, there’s lots more that could be said about all that, but I think Paul already covered it all vastly better than I can, but just this quick notation as well, and we move on… Christians who reject this Truth… the “Grace Plus” folk… generally respond with something like… “Yes, well, Jesus and the Cross and all that are all well and good, but doesn’t the Bible say I have to DO stuff with that? Confess, and do good works, and persist and persevere, and so on? I mean, it’s not just HIM, it’s ME, Too!”
And that’s all way too long a discussion to enter into here, but the critical point is that the Grace Plus Party believe that God’s Plan and Redemption are “Almost Enough”. That to make them come true, WE humans have to add something to Him to make it work. In my own life, honestly, I’ve never found God to NEED a doggone thing I could add to his Omnipotence to make His sovereignty happen.
But going back to 1 John 1:9 for just a moment… because that one IS critical here… “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”… Don, this is your blog and you opened this “confess” can of worms, so I’m gonna leave it to you… O Seminary Professor… to sort this out. But, “confess” is not the word we so often take it to be. It does not NECESSARILY mean a specific declaration of inventory of sins, item by item, in some public or private venue. That is ONE WAY to address this, and that is “valid”. BUT, the word covers vastly more than that.
Personally, most of us who type in these pages fulfill this “requirement” almost every time we do. We acknowledge to one another, to God, and (heavens) to the entire World Wide Web that we are frail, fallen, and we fail often. We admit that we do not have the corner on the Truth market, and that we may be wrong, or partially right, and that you, my brethren, need to forgive me if or as I offend you.
I am old. But I realized long ago, even when I was what would pass for “young”, that I was just not mentally sharp enough, smart enough, diligent enough… to even REMEMBER all my sins of a given day, week, month, or year… let alone Catalogue and then Recite them. This verse caused me much pause in my early days. And I came to the conclusion that if my eternal destiny, my salvation and destination to heaven rather than hell, depended on either my memory or my diligence with “Confession”… then I was truly and simply damned. God is not mocked, and there’s no “sliding by” with Him. This verse is either true, or it is not.
I came to two conclusions… One, the verse is true. Simple as that. Two, that, therefore, I did not understand “confession” the way John and God did. I needed to adjust my thinking of language, not my faith in scripture. So… I did the homework on “confess”… realized what God meant by this for me in my own life and conscience (which is not to say that has to apply to all people everywhere)… but I did begin to teach more comprehensively about the verb “confess”.
*sigh*
I’m not even gonna proofread this… I’d be too depressed to see its length. But doggone it, Don… if you keep putting out such incredibly fabulous posts… what can I do? Again, please feel free to edit this down. You never have, bless yer heart… but there could always be a first time.
Blessings and grace to thee and thine!
Oh my, where do I begin?
I suppose I should begin with a very big THANK YOU! for such a moving comment; pure gold brother. Yes indeed, Christ’s work in in place NOW! We are forgiven NOW, sin is taken away NOW! Oh, why don’t more Christians comprehend the power of this fact! How many pastors and professors want to argue that it’s all at a later date when the Scriptures speak of present reality… with the inevitable result (or at least implication) that we can’t quite ever do His will. So sad.
Now when I got to the second part dealing with”confess” I must admit that I had to stop reading because I was literally laughing out loud. I remember reading studies as an undergrad about how Americans will smile, nod or even laugh when someone says something that is TRUE. I think I just demonstrated that this research is still correct!
When I inserted 1 John 1:9 into the post, I was thinking about just that point, how someone who reads this will understand the word “confess” accoding to their doctrinal background and that different people will take away different things from it, and to be honest, I was hoping they would take away some questions, lingering questions that might just motivate them to read another post in the near future that deals with this subject: Confessing our Sin.
I’m right there with you! “Confessing” our sins is not a matter of addressing a specific legal bill of particulars. It isn’t like a bankruptcy in which a debt cannot be discharged unless it is listed and the creditor notified so many days in advance. No! That is nothing more than man-made legalism in my view! Of course, this, again in my view, is a symptom of a much larger spiritual problem, a problem that I have previously addressed a couple of times here in series of posts, coming at the issue from a couple of different angles, and which it seems that I’m headed into once again.
I’ve written another post for later today that creeps a little further into the issue, and there will be additional posts in coming days that gets into these things more and more, hopefully moving from the general into the specific, and more or less cleverly disguised as mere musings rather than graduate level theology…
O how good and how pleasant it is when brothers and sisters share around the kitchen table! Believe it or not, but I’m really trying to figure out how to adapt relational, conversational one-on-one or small group discipleship into the medium of blogging. It seems kind of a risk, since I’m not sure how to do it, but I’m taking a stab at it anyway!
What a blessing you are LM! I can’t thank you enough for all that you are doing here!
Don
*Pours a refill to your coffee mug*
I don’t think we “disagree” on this… but I want to highlight something I think is often vastly misunderstood. Bear in mind, my primary identity is “Spiritual Director”, or “Counselor”, rather than “Church Pastor”. I’ve now held such “godly counsel” as my primary ministry for over 50 years. In that time, I’ve discovered an amazing thing.
People… BELIEVERS… or Non-Believers are not “wired” to believe anything of our relationship with God, that they do not first experience (to some extent), in relationship with people. Not REALLY. Not deep down inside ourselves. Not in that incredibly deep spirit place from which the Psalmist writes.
Now, this can be a serious problem. When we teach children that “confess your sins”, means “talk to God in prayer”… and that it does NOT mean… “tell someone you trust”… we sometimes do a disservice. Children are wired to feel guilty and ashamed until a grownup punishes and/or forgives them and discharges their offense (says they are forgiven). As grownups, this training, this wiring moves with us through our lives.
Hence, I have, as have you and every other pastoral minister here… had people come into my study and “confess” deep issues of fault and guilt and shame in their lives… that THEY HAVE CONFESSED “TO GOD” for YEARS… and not been freed of their sense of guilt and shame until they can look in my eyes, and see that my love for them has not changed. I can hear their words, I can feel their pain with them, I can feel their shame and remorse with them, I can share the fact that RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, is someone… another Grace Child of God… who has ALSO sinned and soiled the sacred self… and that Jesus, Our Elder Brother, in the Will of Our Father… took all that onto and into Himself, paid its price and REMOVED it from us. I can guide us, together, to the Cross in amazement, and help this person fit on their Robe of Christ’s Righteousness as we rise from our knees together, and they walk out REALIZING that they are wholly and totally forgiven by the love of God.
This is not a matter of “ritual” or “law” or “custom” or “tradition”. This can happen in a multitude of ways or styles… but it has been my experience that one way or another it MUST HAPPEN.
I’ve never met a single human being yet who can be ashamed of a sin, something that eats away at the innards, and ever be truly freed from their sense of guilt and shame until they’ve mustered up the courage to hear the words “You are forgiven for that”… from God’s heart through a human voice. Inside, the person is ALWAYS vulnerable to the Accuser’s Ongoing Lie.. “Well, all this ‘forgiveness’ stuff is well and good, but if GOD really KNEW you like *I* know you… knew what you did, what your heart felt… He’d never forgive you. And if all these so-called Christians around here knew what you did, they wouldn’t even let you stay among them. If THAT minister over there knew what you REALLY did… you’d be thrown out on your ear in a heartbeat. So you better just keep all that stuff to yourself, keep muttering your little prayers to God, and just hope for the best.”
You’ve been there. I’ve been there. Both sides of that. And you’ve seen the tears of relief and joy when a brother or sister stand up straight and tall, freed of that horrible fear for the first time in their lives.
“Confess” includes the mouth. No doubt. But the words, context, format…. God works all that out with folks on their own.
Again, I just say how this seems in MY little corner of the Kingdom. If it’s different in yours, that’s just fine. If anything I say seems not Truth in accordance with God’s Word as expressed in the Bible, or if it just doesn’t ring with truth in your spirit… don’t give it a second thought. Just cast it aside and carry on.
Yours in great respect and gratitude, LM
You’ve brought up a great point, and you are quite right in saying that I’ve been on both sides of it more than once. I think you would agree with me that this is one of those areas where “relationship” comes into play, for I haven’t been in many situations like you describe where there wasn’t first a relationship of trust in place. Even then such “confessions” can be messy scenes. I agree with you that people often think that others will condemn them and toss them out of the congregation, and quite frankly, they are often right. As we all know, there are too many places where we kill off our wounded. Tragically, we sometimes kill off the very wounded that we are supposed to be in the “business” of healing. Well, I guess I’m a little off point, sorry.
I’m not quite sure that everyone is wired exactly the same way in this area, but I am willing to defer to your greater experience in this. Certainly, no one can argue with the fact that we often feel so much better after we talk things out and get things, in this case sins, transgressions etc. off our chests.
The real question in my mind right now is how to present this message of healing and renewal in this medium to people who are not known to us, with whom we have no relationship of personal and circumstantial knowledge. Can we explain the basics and say “see your pastor” not knowing anything about the pastor? I struggle with this, but I’m resolved to do the best I can, and with the input of wise and mature brothers such as yourself, maybe there will be way on this imperfect medium, to at least point people in the right direction.
Thanks LM for your wisdom in Christ, may He always bless you and your ministry!
Oh, and thanks for the refill!
Don
“I think you would agree with me that this is one of those areas where “relationship” comes into play”
Wow! ABSOLUTELY! In fact, “relationship” is the essence of the entire “healing dynamic”. This is not a matter of “looking up someone in the Yellow Pages” (*I wonder if all readers here have ever SEEN “yellow pages”…. but anyway*) I am not providing an apologetic for “liturgical Rite of Reconciliation” here. I’m talking about something much deeper, much more vulnerable. About finding a person whose respect and regard is important to oneself… and trusting them with a disclosure that runs the risk of diminishing that respect and/or regard. THIS is the “condition of possibility” for “Unconditional Love”. Forgiveness requires unconditioned love. And it is difficult (in my experience, impossible) for a human to believe it of God, until they have experienced something very like it from man.
“Can we explain the basics and say “see your pastor” not knowing anything about the pastor? I struggle with this…”
Rightly so (the struggle part). I believe this is a very sacred, and very private, place in the heart between a soul and the Holy Spirit. If… when… as… the Spirit Himself gives leadership to discuss an issue with someone, when it is an inspiration not contravened by Scripture… then the action holds the mandate of conscience. By no means do I suggest that anyone pursue such a course out of “rote”, or “fear”, or “form”… not at all. In fact, I frequently say… don’t guide your spiritual life or practices by what ANYBODY says, even me! (Perhaps ESPECIALLY me! Lol). But discern the guidance of the Holy Spirit within your conscience, compare that only with the walk, words, and leadership of Jesus as we see Him minister through the Gospels… and, if you have affirmation and conviction of spirit within, that “witness of spirit” thing… then obey Him without hesitation or argument. Don’t ever believe ME… but do believe Him when He speaks through Scripture and Spirit… whether it echoes my words or not.
Now, there are lots of other valid means for testing the spirits with discernment, so these aren’t meant to be exhaustive or exclusive.
I think Mary got it right, “His mother *said to the servants, ‘Whatever He says to you, do it.'” (John 2:5)
🙂
Couldn’t have said it better myself, as is so often the case! 🙂
For me personally, my experience has been that feelings of guilt – after I have confessed and turned my back on my sin – boil down to two things:
1. My pride – I find myself thinking “How could I have done ‘that’? I’m better than that!” I’m not.
2. My constant struggle to subject my feelings to the truth of God’s Word. When I stop leaning on what I’m feeling and just flat-out believe what God says in His Word, there’s no basis for guilt.
My feelings are fickle. God’s truth is unchanging, and His forgiveness is His promise 🙂 If I’m trusting that He can raise me from the dead and grant eternal life, I can trust Him to keep His Word and forgive me.
FYI – This is the conversation I have with myself whenever I deal with guilt. It’s not been a once-and-done process for me. It’s a frequent coming back to the question, “What’s the Truth? What does God say is true?”
Yes, you, me and most others! It’s funny that we often talk about faith, not really understanding where it is most critical in our daily living. I think this is where it is so very critical, because for most good people, this is a weak point: When we mess up, disappoint God and disappoint ourselves. We need to remember that no matter what we may feel about a situation, the Word of God is constant and true. Praise Him for He is reliable when we are not!
“…no, let’s say it this way: If we believe God…”
I don’t want to overthink this. Also, I haven’t read all of the other comments yet to see if anyone has responded to the section in quotes above.
I love to read the Word of God, because in it I find truths that go far beyond any possible replacement I might provide for them. I’m just a single individual, with limited understanding of the eternal. In fact, we all are.
But I do know this: when I try to go it alone, based on my own understanding, based on my own principles, and based on my own life goals, whether short or long range, I come up wanting, EVEN WHEN I spend what I perceive to be adequate time in between the pages.
And when I do read it, there are a LOT of passages that endorse the over-contemplation of guilt, injustice, sin, etc., ad nauseum, ad infinitum.
So what do I do? Try to relate to the guys on the road to Emmaus. Try to relate to another human being whose name could legitimately be Barnabas. Boy, do we need people named Barnabas today.
Why? Because it is in relating to those guys of yesterday, and finding those guys of today that reveal to me that He is greater than my understanding of His Word. At times, and not just related to my sin, His Word has been used to tie up my heart (by a force we will not mention by name here.) Don’t get me wrong. It isn’t His WORD that ties up my heart. Rather, it is my heart that ties up His WORD. But I, being finite, don’t want to let go of that which make ME and every part of ME the focal point in my life.
And that’s called PRIDE.
I wonder who decided to call a family of lions a pride. But there is another who wants to destroy us, and we know that he goes throughout the earth like a roaring lion, seeking those he can destroy. And it is pride that opens the door.
Better to trust in Him, or no, let’s say it this way: let’s just trust Him.
Great comment! You are so right that we cannot do everything on our own. We need relationships with mature believers who are our godly mentors… and we need to trust Him. Of course to trust Him requires that we believe Him, follow Him and. Sadly, struggling with our own pride is a life-long thing for mee too!
It’s our thorn in the flesh, I guess. But His grace is sufficient for us. He knows we are but dust. I guess the key is to consider His perspective more frequently with more fervency. That He became one of us, but… you know what Philippians says… Perhaps, alternatively, maybe struggling with pride is better than going gung-ho, head over heals in love with our selves, and getting lost in the trap that brings. Maybe those who should be sad are those who have lost sight of the value of others.
Yes, I think so too
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